


Assets

by Mrholyhire



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Oh My God, Romance, Shameless, Smut, almost pwp, mostly shameless smut though, okay its only sort of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:37:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrholyhire/pseuds/Mrholyhire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan tempts his Commander post-Rannoch. Drunk silliness, then some not so silly things happen in his cabin. Sort of pwp!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assets

Calling this particular day exhausting was a laughable understatement. At least Shepard could check off single-handedly killing a reaper off his bucket list, as well as shouting down an Admiral to prevent a genocide. The crew who were on the surface were all by the armor lockers in the cargo bay, and the mood, aside from a general feeling a fatigue clearly present on everyone's faces, was one of triumph. Shepard released the latches on his gauntlets first. His hands were a little too clumsy to to get any other pieces of his armor off, so he always started with those first. Kaidan was standing next to him. His deft fingers worked almost effortlessly on his shining blue armor, unlocking each piece quickly and efficiently, and he didn't even need to take his gloves off until he got down to his greaves.

 

Kaidan saw him staring. A smile flashed over his face as he turned away from Shepard and bent over to unclasp his boots. Such a display was unlike Kaidan, but Shepard figured there was still adrenaline coursing through him. Adrenaline made all of them step out of their comfort zones without fear, and he was greatly enjoying the remnants of it currently flowing through Kaidan. His eyes fell over the cleft in his ass, and his pelvic plate suddenly felt too tight. Kaidan uprighted himself and looked over his shoulder at Shepard's face and he seemed pleased with himself. Shepard stepped closer, breath brushing Kaidan's ear, placed a hand low on the desirous biotic's hip, and whispered “Later, Major Alenko.” He felt Kaidan shiver under his hand.

 

Shepard absolutely needed to get his mind off _things_ before _things_ happened in front of everyone in the cargo bay.

 

The mission. Think about how long this report's going to take to write up. The council might not be happy about Geth _and_ Rachni running around the Crucible construction teams, but they would see reason. Probably.

 

The whole thing with Rannoch was that is was a _mess_. A disaster planet speckled with Heretic bases, abandoned cities with three hundred year old architecture, and who knows how many bones of centuries-dead Quarians just scattered everywhere, whether they were buried or left on the surface, exposed to the atmosphere where they would crack, splinter, and slowly wither into dust.

 

Not to mention the fucking _repaer landing pad._

 

Tali definitely didn't look at it that way, at least not anymore. When he'd sat next to her, just looking at the horizon on her new found home, he tried to see it through her eyes. He imagined how Earth would look after everything was over, the lengthy, laborious process of rebuilding the countless homes, military bases, embassies, airports and docking stations; an immense amount of work and time would need happen, and Shepard had a gut feeling that he wouldn't live to see it. This mission, in all likelihood, would kill him. Tali, though, she had a future here, and despite the facts that, one, the Quarians were significantly fewer in numbers than humans were so the progress toward rehabilitation would take a much, much longer time and, two, any of the remaining Quarian technology on the planet would be completely unsalvageable.

 

That didn't seem to bother Tali at all. She seemed like a massive weight had been lifted from her spirits and had a bit of a spring in her gait as she and Garrus walked toward the elevator, no doubt to the bar to share a drink and a few stories. Vega shouted “Hey! Hold the door!” and he and Cortez followed them into the lift. The door whirred closed and exhaled a whoosh of air before carrying them upwards. Shepard finished hanging his armor in the locker a few minutes after, and walked over to the controls and pushed the recall button.

 

Shepard turned and looked at Kaidan, a smirk on his face, and cocked his head toward the elevator as it touched down. The biotic let a playful grin cross his face and walked over to Shepard. Adrenaline was present in the look Kaidan wore when he reached Shepard's side. He'd rather they caused a scene in Port Observation than on the floor of the cargo bay.

 

Plus, Kaidan got a little more interesting with a few drinks in him.

 

~

 

“No no no, Major. An emergency induction port. It's very advanced technology, you see. Turian and human design, just like the SR-1.”

 

“Tali” Garrus interrupted her. “Turians can't drink through straws, we can't even suck up liquid since we don't even really have cheeks. We can imitate the motions, but it just looks like we're flapping our mandibles.”

 

“Si, can't have you flapping them too much. You might fly away like a big bird” James quipped. Kaidan had observed, after losing many, many rounds of 'Estaban-pour-the-major-a-shot' poker, that a little tequila went a long way in respect to getting Vega out of his heavily muscled shell. Garrus rolled his eyes, and Shepard laughed heartily with everyone else in the room.

 

Kaidan had done a great deal of observing his crew mates in their after-mission drinking celebrations. Sometimes they each just had one after small victories and it was more difficult to see the effect that alcohol had on everyone, but they had just won an entire planet. This was not going to be a one-drink kind of night. In the past hour, Kaidan learned that James let down his guard when he drank, Tali got a little silly and started to slur and slip in her speech after just one, Garrus didn't change much at all, and Liara would try her absolute best to retain her careful composure in comical ways. She'd stumble and pretend it didn't happen, or cover her face with her hand when she felt her cheeks warming from one drink too many. At the moment, Shepard, who was surprisingly an affectionate drunk, had one arm around her shoulders, and she had one wrapped around his waist. He kept trying to nuzzle his cheek on her cranial tentacles, and she kept telling him “Tell Joker they don't move!” and dodging his efforts. Despite her tone of voice, they both had big, tipsy smiles plastered on their faces.

 

“No way” Joker said across the room, drink swishing in his glass as he used it to gesture toward Liara in a denunciatory fashion, pointer finger extended from his glass at her. He was seated on a couch that looked more inviting after every drink Kaidan imbibed. “According to the extranet, and you can't lie on there by the way, Asari used them for super ancient mating rituals. Or something. You know, wag them at each other.”

 

“Joker, really?”She sighed, and a hand covered her face, just like usual.

 

Shepard chuckled and told her, “You know he's going to keep bothering you until you tell him.”

 

“They're semi-flexible, cartilage based shcalp-” her hand tightened over her face in embarassment, “ _scalp_ -crests that grow into shape. And they don't 'wag.'

 

“YES.” He yelled fortuitously. “You hear that Vega? I was right.”

 

“Dammit. You sure about that, Doc?” He looked over at Liara being reluctantly cheek-rubbed by his CO and looked almost ready to burst. She glared in his direction, but it broke when she tripped over her own shabby drunken-balancing abilities and had to use Shepard's indomitable waist to keep herself standing.

 

Kaidan put down the whiskey he was nursing and strode over to Liara. She slipped her other arm around his waist and released her hold on Shepard, whose cheeks were turning pink. Kaidan thought it was kind of cute. He put his arm around Liara's waist to hold her up and escorted her to the couch. Standing was clearly not something she was good at right now, and having her sit here had the added advantage of Shepard being free to nuzzle someone else.

 

With the aid of liquid courage, he slipped into the warm space where Liara had once stood, and Shepard happily slung an arm around Kaidan's shoulders.

 

~

 

Kaidan was heavier than he looked. There wasn't really any fat on him at all, the muscle he carried was leaned out and unquestionably chiseled, but that didn't stop it from weighing him down on Shepard's back.

 

Once Kaidan started falling asleep on a barstool and everyone had begin to filter out to their bunks, Shepard decided the night was pretty much over. He walked over to the half-lidded biotic, swiveled his stool around, kneeled, and scooped him up. Kaidan leaned his chest onto a hard, comforting back and looped his arms around the broad shoulders in front of him.

 

He might get a little friendly while he was drinking, Shepard thought as Kaidan pinched his garron's cheek, but Kaidan became a mix of outgoing and crazy. Just an hour ago, after his fourth or fifth drink, Kaidan had biotic-floated his glass across the room, set it on the poker table, and proclaimed himself a 'biotic god amongst mortals!' He'd crossed his arms and pouted when Shepard wouldn't give him his drink back, but eventually gave up the expression when Shepard told him it was pretty impressive for someone who wasn't even sober. It was the truth. Shepard's own biotics weren't as strong, but he'd take military Vanguard training over the chilling experience from Jump Zero any day.

 

After a short ride in the lift and an even shorter walk out of it, Shepard bent down next to his bed and rolled Kaidan off his back. He landed in the middle and promptly stretched his arms and legs across the entirety of the mattress, teasing Shepard with a sleepy moan as he stuck his hands under his head.

 

“Planning to share?” Shepard asked him, humor reflected in his voice.

 

“You know I'm a space hog, Shepard” he replied through a smile, and rolled to his side to relinquish half the bed.

 

Shepard moved to Kaidan's feet and sat down on the bed. He undid the knots, loosened the laces, pried the military-issue boots off, and set them next to Kaidan's side of the bed.

 

Kaidan's side of the bed. Shepard started to think about it, but decided that he didn't really care when that side had become Kaidan's instead of the whole bed just being empty every night while Shepard paced with datapad in hand. He _loved_ it.

 

The idea of he and Kaidan sharing a long-term space, mixing up toothbrushes in the morning, getting used to him stealing the blankets, all of it.

 

Shepard looked down at Kaidan and remembered the first time he could really look at his sleeping face and memorize the shape of his lips, his jaw, feel his breath... it was before Ilos, and after all the careful flirtation, all the waiting, the veiled questions, the anticipation, the sweat and driven needs finally coming to the surface... with Kaidan's concerns about fraternization and Shepard's sheer inexperience, it had all the makings of awkwardness but never quite got there.

 

Kaidan inhaled for a yawn, and breathed out a “Coming to bed?” Shepard didn't answer him, but made quick work of his boots, shirt and trousers, and slid from his seat on the edge of the mattress to his familiar place right behind Kaidan. One arm was extended under the pillow they both shared, and the other came around Kaidan's waist, palm flat and exploratory as it found his chest. His thumb slowly stroked the groove between his pectorals, and he felt his lover's chest shake with a small laugh and rumble with a raspy “That tickles, Shepard.”

 

Shepard closed his eyes, warmed by the heart beating inches away from his own, never imagining that he had such a corny, almost hackneyed side to himself. He squeezed Kaidan a little tighter to his chest and felt content.

 

~

 

 _God, how much did I drink last night?_ Kaidan thought as he turned on the shower. When he'd woken up and felt an embracing hard warmth on his back, and a hard warmth on his ass _Come on, Shepard. What are you, seventeen?_ he felt happy. Most mornings before his talk with Shepard at Apollo's, he'd get up and go through the routine of shower, brush, dress, eat, and mission, usually accompanied by a dull throbbing behind his forehead. After Apollo's, however, nothing was really so banal anymore. Sometimes he'd wake up and stare at the blue-shift emissions through the window above the bed, or stare at Shepard's sleeping form, the steady rise and fall of his chest, his mouth slightly agape to accommodate his breathing, always through the mouth and never through the nose when he slept. Kaidan suspected that not many people had been drooled on by the Commander except himself.

 

The happy thoughts didn't chase away the rising pain in the back of his head, though. The pulsing ache usually responded to hot water, whiskey-induced hangover or no, and the same was happening this morning. He stood directly under the stream and scrubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to get the sleep out of his eyes. Scrubbing shampoo into his hair didn't feel nearly as nice. After a routine shower and teeth-brushing, Kaidan reached over to the rack across from the sink.

 

Kaidan wrapped a towel around his waist and went over to the bed. Shepard was on his side, facing Kaidan. He sat on the edge of the mattress nearest to Shepard, and the movement disturbed his quiet slumber. Shepard grunted in response. Kaidan laid a hand on the side of Shepard's head and stroked his thumb across a temple.

 

“Hey” Shepard said sleepily, stretching his limbs across the bed and then sitting up slightly to lean his shoulders against the backboard. “You smell clean.”

 

“Yeah, well that's one side effect of a shower.” he replied as he laid his head on Shepard's chest. They laid there quietly, Shepard still trying to wake up, and Kaidan listening to the thumps of his lover's heart and feeling the reverberations under the hand he placed on his abdomen. His palm traveled along the grooves and ridges of his abs, feeling the contours of Shepard's bronze skin with callused fingertips. He stroked wide paths up and down, only moving his wrist to drag his hand over warm skin and the dip of his navel, relishing the little moments like this that he felt he had missed out on.

 

And then, Kaidan realized as he noticed Shepard was only wearing his briefs, this didn't have to be one of those little moments, that it could be something much more.

 

He smiled and continued stroking, but on each downstroke, his hand moved lower and lower. It trailed over the thin line of hair below his navel, across a sharp hip bone, and down over an inner thigh. Shepard responded groggily by pulling his knee to the side, granting Kaidan more access. Kaidan slid further down his torso, and his hand caressed the curves of Shepard's inner thigh, searching and probing for any new scars to memorize along the shape of his muscled hamstring. There only ones present were from a close call with shrapnel a few months ago. Once Dr. Chakwas had patched him up, Kaidan was relieved, but Shepard would sometimes wear an anxious look whenever Kaidan touched them, saying 'What if they had gone higher up? I wouldn't be a _man_ anymore, Kaidan.' He did it to make Kaidan laugh, usually.

 

Kaidan climbed in between his legs, nudged them apart, and leaned in to kiss every mark he saw. His searching hand came up and lightly palmed the steadily swelling bulge in Shepard's briefs, earning him a small moan and his first glimpse of icy blue eyes for the morning.

 

He yawned out a “Morning, Major” with a drowsy smile on his face. He didn't get the chance to close his mouth after saying it; his throat let out a quiet moan and Kaidan's warm mouth came up to cover his balls. Early morning coherence wasn't a specialty for Shepard, but he had enough consciousness on his side now to bring his legs closer together and hook his thumbs under the elastic of his briefs to start pulling them down. Kaidan got the hint and moved back from between his strong legs, pulling the only piece of Shepard's clothing with him. He flung them unceremoniously in the general direction of the hamper, and quickly moved back to his former place, placing Shepard's legs over his shoulders as he slid back in. His mouth back to work on the same spot, each suck and tongue flick and gentle tug serving to screw Shepard's eyebrows tighter together. One of Shepard's hands found Kaidan's hair and balled into a fist, the other gripping sheets with white knuckles. His knees came up and his feet were flat on the bed. With his newly found room to work, Kaidan licked a heated path with the blade of his tongue down to the sensitive skin below, flickering the tip across it, then further down to a neglected entrance. A second hand flew to Kaidan's head, finding it's place at the base of his skull, and the hand in his hair let go to wrap around Shepard's fully erect cock. Kaidan felt his own hardness twitch against the towel around his waist. He discarded the material.

 

Shepard was melting under Kaidan's deft tongue. Each sweltering lap added to the fever pitch pooling in his lower abdomen, and as completely amazing as this felt, Shepard was never one to be content with letting someone else do all the work. He pulled away from Kaidan's mouth and sat up. He wrapped his hands around Kaidan's biceps and guided him onto his back. Kaidan looked into his eyes and grinned.

 

“Morning, Commander.”

 

Shepard would have laughed if the feelings coming from his groin weren't overpowering his sense of humor. He dipped his head down to meet the dark-haired man's teasing lips, relishing the taste of himself on Kaidan's exploring tongue. He smiled into the kiss.

 

“You're almost _too_ good at that” Shepard said breathlessly. He laid on top of Kaidan and ground his erection into the other man's hip. His mouth made a path with lips and teeth down to the crook of Kaidan's neck, and across his shoulder. The biotic under him shuddered.

 

Shepard resisted the overwhelming urge to rush downard on his body and instead drifted south painfully, deliciously slow, letting his lips and fingers leave feather-light touches on the way. When he finally reached Kaidan's aching hardness, he flicked his tongue on the underside of the head, eliciting a gasp and earning a hand grazing the back of his head. His tongue came up to swirl around the tip, the taste of Kaidan's anticipation weeping from his length. His mouth left Kaidan to coat one of his own fingers, and then returned with a long lick up the back of his cock. The slick finger went down to press at Kaidan's entrance. Shepard heard a whiskey-rough moan, but didn't see Kaidan's face as he plunged his mouth down as far as he could go onto the wanting shaft in front of him. He sucked as he went back upwards and slid the moistened digit slowly into his lover. Kaidan pushed down onto it, his breaths coming out ragged and tight.

 

“Christ, Shepard” he moaned as lips, mouth and throat worked tirelessly on him, and gasped loudly when another finger was introduced and spread apart inside him. His mind was clouded with a restless haze of sheer want and lust as he ground down onto the probing extremities and arched his back into Shepard's vigorous mouth. He didn't feel like he could hold out much longer.

 

As if Shepard had read his mind, he lifted himself up and over Kaidan's breathless form, his thighs pushing Kaidan's to the sides, and reached for a tube they always kept in the top drawer. Kaidan took it from him, unscrewed the cap, and squeezed a moderate amount onto his hand. He put it back on the dresser and reached down to Shepard's cock, mixing it with the precum that had found its way out of the tip.

 

With all the love he could muster, Shepard looked into Kaidan's chestnut eyes and bent down for a long, meaningful kiss. He placed a forearm on one side of Kaidan's head, foreheads touching, eyes locked onto each other, and lined himself up with his free hand. Kaidan's hands were in fists on the edges of the pillow. He began to push in.

 

Kaidan's jaw dropped and raspy, uncontrollable moans poured out of his throat as Shepard slid into him. Pain was present, always a part of this, their joining, their haven, their connectedness, but unlike the pain that was there every day, every mission, this kind of pain was always submerged with pleasure. He was tight, but Kaidan nodded against Shepard's forehead, signaling the okay to go on. He luxuriated in this as Shepard slowly pulled back, knowing that whatever happened, however this war ended, they had this right _now._ This primal act, the possibilities of the future inundated by the cloud of desire and fervor and carnality. Shepard's hunger for Kaidan was palatable in the air, in every moan as he slid in, on his lips when they kissed, in every _God_ and _Fuck_ when he sighed.

 

Shepard's free hand wrapped around Kaidan's cock and pumped in syncopation against his increasingly rapid thrusts. He wasn't even speaking words coherently anymore. The heated tightness in his pelvis was drawing all his attention to the man under him. The way Kaidan felt around his cock, his eyebrows straining to knit closer together, the lines on his forehead, the liquid ease of just pistoning into him because all he wanted to do was give, give give and Kaidan was willing to take it all, turn it into hard, defined muscles rippling from ecstasy and gruff, breathy cries of pleasure. When he felt Kaidan's release gush into his hand, Shepard couldn't hold anything back anymore and drove home, feeling Kaidan clench around him as he spilled into the person he could no longer live without.

 

Shepard collapsed on top of Kaidan, staying inside him, hearts racing against ribs and heavy breaths brushing the other man's skin. He felt completely spent. He noticed sweat beaded on Kaidan's brow.

 

“Guess you probably need another shower.”

 

Shepard rolled off him and Kaidan moved in close to nuzzle his cheek on Shepard's chest, one arm slung over his torso. “Yeah, and you need yours too. We could just use up all the hot water on the ship.”

 

“Imagine how mad Traynor would be if all she got was cold water” Shepard said with a fatigued smile.

 

“Or James” Kaidan shuddered. He weakly got to his feet and turned around to look at Shepard still lying on the bed. “You know, we could probably conserve water if you helped me get clean...”

 

“You scrub mine, I'll scrub yours.” His eyes followed Kaidan into the bathroom, admiring the view.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, my hand slipped and a writing thing came out! Thanks a lot, wine-I-bought-on-impulse.
> 
> And guys, if I could draw, I would definitely draw Shepard getting his cheek-rubs on with Liara's head. Among other things that kind of happened in this why is it steamy in here oh my god


End file.
